AS *Others*. See *Us by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 28, 1907

AS Others. See Us

By C. M. S.

It may not be amiss for us to take a look at ourselves once in a while in the garb that an unfriendly cartoonist pictures us wearing. In thus doing it may be possible for us to show the artist where he has caricatured us when he meant only to picture our likeness.

We have never expected that our attitude toward the Sunday question would meet with approval on the part of those who keep Sunday and wish to compel others to do so. Neither have we expected any applause for our position on the question of religious legislation and the union of church and state from those who are seeking to make men and nations religious by law. Therefore we are not so greatly astonished as we otherwise might be when we read such statements as the following from the Methodist Christian Advocate, of New York; for the Advocate believes in the Sunday institution, and believes in the union of church and state—in practise if not in theory. But we are a little surprised that the Advocate should go so far in its disapproval of our position as some of its statements and its approval of the California Christian Advocate’s statements would indicate. We quote:—

The Seventh-day Adventists Active Against the Protection of Sunday by Law

The California Christian Advocate has an editorial on the activity of Seventh-day Adventism. It alleges that some time ago an effort was made to secure better observance of Sunday in Washington, D. C., and that the whole strength of the Seventh-day Adventists was used to betray the measure, and affirms that now “in California an effort is being made to re-establish the Christian Sunday as a day of rest. The Seventh-day Advent brethren are aroused to the highest degree of moral stress to prevent the legislature from taking any action.” The editor continues: “It never seems to occur to these good brethren that common ethics, ordinary respect for morality, would dictate quiescence if not co-operation. This childish stubbornness on the part of the Adventists shows how far they are in the rear of the procession of events. If the contention had any ground in ethics or in piety or in common sense, we might be willing to come to Saturday or Wednesday or any day of the week in order to have one day of rest, but to come to Saturday would be to rehabilitate a sheer mechanical religious despotism.”

We have noticed the activity of the Seventh-day Adventists in connection with Sunday laws, and have seen a spirit in some of them which we can not harmonize with a wide view. We agree that they are justified in keeping Saturday as the Sabbath, that is, justified by their own methods of interpretation, with which we do not agree. We are willing that the laws should recognize their conscientious convictions by indulging them in using Sunday as they please up to the point where they would tend to demoralize its religious use by the Christian nations of the world, precisely as we sympathize with conscientious Jews—to the same extent and no more. But when the Seventh-day Adventists, knowing well by long experience that they can not make any inroads upon the belief of the Christian nations or their practise, act in a manner that shows that they would be glad to see all the remaining restrictions (which, while allowing every man to make it a day of rest, make a day of worship possible for the religious part of the immense preponderance of the population that regard Sunday as the day for religion) taken away, and thus, without themselves accomplishing anything, would be the means of overthrowing in large degree the influence of the Christian sabbath, we may not agree with our contemporary in calling it “childish stubbornness;” but we beg to substitute for that phrase this sentence: “The activity under the circumstances is an aberration of judgment and conscience which brings forth the same effects as childish, that is, unconsidered, stubbornness would produce.”

Now our Methodist brethren must know that if the “Christian Sunday” has been disestablished in California, the only place it can be truly re-established is in the hearts

of the people there. It can not be done by law without religious coercion, which is contrary both to the gospel of Jesus Christ and to the fundamental principles of our government. But when it is established in the hearts of the people, it is a thousand times more firmly established than it would be if established by human law. And what right, brethren Advocates, has any set of men to establish a religious practise by a human law? Religion pertains to the things of God; and each man is accountable for himself to God. God does not judge a man for that man and some one else. Therefore no man is accountable to God for himself and some one else. Therefore no man has a right to compel any other man to do as he does in matters of religion. A divine institution established on a human law is a most inexcusable monstrosity. Nothing of the kind ever originated in heaven; and nothing of a religious character that did not originate in heaven is worthy of a moment’s notice on the part of any individual in this world. God has left men free to choose whether they would serve him or not; and any religious institution that comes to us with the compulsion of human law behind it placards itself with the declaration of heaven’s disapproval.

Seventh-day Adventists are not protesting against the right of any individual to rest when or where he chooses. They do not protest against any man’s worshiping God when he chooses—even if he chooses to rest and worship on a day which the Creator never appointed for such purposes. But they do protest against a union of church and state (or religion and the state as some are now putting it) in this country. They protest against the enforcement of any belief, tenet, or creed by law. They protest against the attempt to make men religious by civil law. They protest against making criminals of Christians because those Christians choose to obey God rather than men—as recently happened through the enforcement of a Sunday law in Spartanburg, S. C., and as has occurred in many other States of this Union.

Seventh-day Adventists would regard it as a terrible calamity if the States or the nation should seek to enforce the observance of Saturday as the Sabbath. It would then be in truth what the Advocate calls “a sheer mechanical religious despotism.” And that is what Sunday laws are now making of Sunday wherever they are in force. Whether or not the Sabbath of Jehovah is “a sheer mechanical religious despotism,” we shall leave for the editor of the Advocate to settle with the Author of the institution. Seventh-day Adventists did not have anything to do with making the seventh-day Sabbath. Their duty is fulfilled when they keep it; and in so doing they have found blessing and comfort and rest and strength. It has never come to them as “a sheer mechanical religious despotism,”—far from it. Heaven’s richest blessing and sweetest liberty are experienced in its observance; and therefore they do not need a human law to help them or to compel them to keep it. The fact of the matter is, they would keep it if the civil law were against it; for in religious things they recognize the supremacy of the divine command over the human.

And is this “childish stubbornness”? We are sorry for their own sakes that the Advocates have used such an expression and its equivalent; for surely they know that it is not wise nor kind thus to characterize the conscientious standing for a sacred principle. If it be right thus to do, then every God-fearing man since the days of Adam who has stood for principle has been childishly stubborn. Witness then the “stubbornness” of the three Hebrews who opposed the united worship of all Babylon. Witness the “stubbornness” of Daniel, who continued to pray when it was “against the law,” and when the threat of death hung over him for doing so. Witness the “stubbornness” of Elijah in Israel when he stood for principle against practically the whole nation, and was accused of being the troubler of Israel. Witness the “stubbornness” of Paul in standing for principle against the traditions and injustice of his countrymen and the restrictions of pagan Rome—a “stubbornness” which resulted in his martyrdom.

In fact, witness the “stubbornness” of the fifty million martyrs who paid with their lives for their protest against the “legal religion” of their day. There is no doubt that the ponderous Roman hierarchy regarded the course of these Christian people as “an aberration of judgment and conscience,” and so she took to rectifying that “aberration” by her own legal process. The spirit of many of the advocates of Sunday laws, and the persecution that has already resulted from them, compel us to believe that there are many in these days who would be willing to rectify that “aberration” even as Rome did when she had the power.

C. M. S.